Prisoner's Dilemma
by AvocadoLove
Summary: After taking the airplane down in the Arctic, Steve wakes to find himself imprisoned as a human test subject. With no idea where in the world he is, his only ally is a fast-talking inventor in the cell next door. Something's off about Tony that Steve can't put his finger on, and it's obvious Tony doesn't fully trust him either. But to escape they may not have a choice…
1. Chapter 1

The plane hit ice with a squeal of metal and shattering glass. Seawater rushed in, so cold it was hot. Steve gasped in a breath before the seawater covered his head, angling his body for the broken windshield. If he could get out, he might have half a chance.

Above him, the lights flickered and died and the metal screeched as the airplane settled, sank, with him still in it. Desperately, Steve tried to orient himself, find up from down, but it was so cold he couldn't feel… and he needed air…

… and then…

Steve woke with a pleasantly heavy feeling in limbs, like he'd been down for awhile and finally gotten a good rest. For one moment - one long, comfortable moment - he thought he was in his pup-tent with the commandos. It was time to get up and drink a cup of joe with Bucky and the boys.

No. Bucky was dead. Red Skull was gone-taken up and vanished literally into thin air - and Steve was ... in a jail cell?

He blinked and looked around.

It was a large cell, by his estimates. Maybe eight by twenty-two. Not that Steve had ever been a jailbird, but he'd seen the tiny cages the 107th had been kept in.

He was laying on a single metal plate that served as a bed, bolted down to the wall with a simple sheet thrown over it. The floor was gray concrete, and the front of the cell was a wall of interlocking bars with a reinforced steel door.

An older man stood on the other side of those bars, in the hallway beyond. He was balding, had a pounchy gut and a fancy dark blue suit of a cut Steve had never seen before. He stared at Steve with interest, chewing the end of an unlit cigar.

Steve sat up and a wave of weakness stole over him, making him brace an arm against the nearby wall to catch himself. That's when he saw his right arm had a green tracing of raised veins from his wrist all the way up to the crook of his elbow.

"Whoa there son," the older man said genially. "You may want to take it easy for a few minutes. I've been told palladium poisoning packs a punch."

"Philladum?" Steve tried the word and found it unfamiliar.

The man smiled. "Among other things. We had to pump in a veritable cocktail to keep you down for transport. Don't worry, you body will clear it out soon. That's… really the point."

So this man knew what his serum-enhanced body was capable of. Steve straightened, dropping his arm.

"Am I a prisoner of war?" he asked. The man's gravelly voice sounded American, with no other accent he could place, but Steve had encountered Nazi defectors before.

The man spread his hands, looking charmed. "You're a guest of my facility."

"Guests usually aren't behind bars," he noted.

"Point. But nevertheless you, Captain, are going to help me save the world."

He didn't like where this was going. Centering himself, he stood. The concrete was cold under his bare feet, but his legs held him and the dizziness was rapidly fading. His body was taking care of whatever had kept him asleep. "You and I both know I can do my part better on the front lines, sir."

The man smiled again and Steve got the uncomfortable impression he'd just performed some trick, like a dancing bear at a circus, but he wasn't sure what it was.

"You're really something special," the man said. "But I'm less interested in your fighting ability than what's in your blood."

He was after the serum, then. Steve wasn't surprised - he always had a feeling it would come to this one day. He stood at parade rest and let his gaze drift over the bars of the cell again. The places were they sunk into the concrete and around the door would be the weakest links. "And why would I help you with that?" he asked, more to keep the man talking than anything else.

The man took a step forward. Steve could almost reach between the bars and grab him. If he had a key on him…

"Because your metabolism runs much higher than the average person's, and you need to eat. Three meals a day in exchange for an occasional collection of blood. That's all I ask, Captain." The man replaced the cigar in his mouth. "Think about it. We'll talk later."

He made to leave, and Steve blurted, "Wait, where am-"

"Oh, and if you want my advice?" The man turned back and gestured to the bars. "These are adamantium - indestructible, and expensive, by the way. They also pack one hell of a punch. I wouldn't get too close."

Then he walked away.

* * *

Turns out 'one hell of a punch' meant that the bars were electrified. Steve heard the hum as he got close. When he tapped one with the back of his hand, searing fire raced up his arm. He jerked back, ringing his hand. His fingers were numb for a moment or two, before returning to normal.

Okay, so he wasn't getting out by way of the bars then.

He couldn't see down the hall to any other cells, if there were any, so he spent the next several hours going over every inch of his enclosure. Apart from the bed, toilet, and sink, there was no other fixtures. The back and side walls were made of cinderblock, though short of punching his way through - and that would cause a racket which would send the guards - he had no way to break through. No windows to give him an edge. The only hint of decay was a quarter-sized mouse hole on the back wall by his bed.

Steve's uniform was gone. He was dressed in a simple white shirt and loose white pants with an odd, stretchy waistband. The shirt had 'StaneTech' stitched in the front where a pocket would be. (The stitching was of fine machine quality - apparently everything about this place was expensive.) Steve had worried he'd been captured by another offshoot of HYDRA - they'd done human testing before - but this seemed more and more like a private venture.

There had to be a way to use that to his advantage. Maybe the guards would be less disciplined. Steve might be able to chat one of them up, befriend him. Get a message out to Peggy or Colonel Phillips.

His next visit came several hours later; two guards and a woman in tow. The men wore nondescript dark uniforms with button-up shirts, the waistband riding low on the hips. The woman had a knee-length skirt, blouse and a white lab coat.

Steve was sitting on his bed, but straightened at their approach, his feet flat on the floor. Balance centered.

"Good morning Captain Rogers," the woman said, opening a vertical slat in the steel door and loading a tray of food. She wasn't shocked by the electricity, which was interesting because if Steve concentrated he could still hear the persistent hum of a current.

"Ma'am," he said, nodding faintly. The other two guards loomed behind her, obviously her protection. As if Steve would ever hurt a woman.

She indicated a wide gap in the bars to the left of the door. "Please put your arm through here. You will receive your meal after we draw your blood."

"I don't think so," Steve said amiably enough. But inside he was tense. Waiting.

The woman didn't react. Not even a blink. Instead, she took out a clipboard from under her arm and made a notation on it.

"How many others do you have caged up like this?" Steve asked, watching closely for a reaction. Again, he was disappointed. "How did you find me after my plane crashed?" It had been something eating at him over the last few hours: How did these StaneTech people find him before Colonel Phillips' men had?

The woman looked up from the clipboard. Her gaze was unwelcoming and wholly clinical. "Are you refusing your meal?"

Steve's stomach pinched in with a pang of hunger. "I'm afraid so, ma'am. I won't let you duplicate the serum."

She nodded, took the tray back, and left.

He let out a long breath. Well, that was anti-climatic. But he still waited until the footsteps had receded down the hall to move to the side and remove the two long strips of fabric he'd torn from his sheet. It wasn't much, but if they came in and tried to force him he might be able to use it as a garrotte.

He didn't think these were the kind of people to allow obstinence.

He was right. When they returned a few hours later, and Steve refused, one of the men withdrew a pistol and shot at him. Steve jerked out of the way of the first bullet. The second one hit his shoulder with a sting - no, it wasn't a bullet at all. It was a dart.

Another dart hit his thigh and a wave of sudden weakness made him stumble. The door opened and the two guards rushed in. Steve got in a good punch to the first fellow, but his reactions were slow. It felt like he were moving in thick, clinging water. They knocked him down with a fight, but they still knocked him down.

It took five minutes for the serum to burn out whatever they'd put in him. It took only half that for them to remove a small vial's worth of blood.

They left the tray of food and a small cup of water behind.

* * *

It's the hunger that irritated him more than the boredom. It was ridiculous because Steve had been hungry plenty of times as a kid. Brooklyn winters could be bitter, medicine wasn't cheap, and his mother had to work double shifts as a waitress while his father drank everything away. Sometimes he'd come home from school and the lights wouldn't turn on for weeks on end. Or, more often, he'd be sick in bed, hungry and shivering under every blanket in the house because firewood was expensive and oil more so.

He'd been bored and hungry before. He could do it again.

Steve clenched his fingers into a fist. Assuming he was being fed three times a day (and his growling stomach protested otherwise) he'd been a 'guest' here close to a week. He'd endured three blood draws, and he was no closer to befriending the guards, or finding a single weak point to his cage. (He'd tried the bars at least once a day - adamantium was strong and the electric shocks hurt every single time.)

In his moments not spent exercising or searching for a way out, he wondered what Peggy was doing now. Wondered what Colonel Phillips must think of him - dead, most likely. Steve tried and failed not to imagine Peggy waiting alone at the Stork club. And Bucky… why, they must have buried him by now, or an empty casket in his name. There hadn't been time to look for the body, or properly grieve before the last strike on HYDRA's base.

Now Steve had nothing but time, and he didn't want it. Bucky's death was a hole in his heart, not even scabbed over. Maybe it never would.

Steve sighed and leaned his head back against the back wall, closing his eyes. Maybe if he got some sleep...

"...never work… what, is this crap written in base eight?..."

Steve's eyes snapped open and he looked around. What is that? The guards aren't prone to conversation within his hearing. Could it be a radio?

"...they'll let anyone graduate these days… the power source should go here, not…"

Steve glanced down. The voice, barely rising above a murmur, was coming from the mouse-hole he'd noticed in the back wall wall near his bed.

Glancing to the cell door to make sure none of the guards are doing their sweep, he crouched down and called, "Hello?"

The monologue stopped mid-sentence, and Steve's heart leapt. Not a radio. A real life person. He tried again. "Hi, can you hear me?"

Another moment of silence, then. "Please don't tell me I'm hearing voices. Schizophrenia is not a good look on me."

It wasn't funny, but Steve felt a quick smile pull at his lips anyway. The first one since they brought him here. It felt like forever.

"No, I'm real. Are you another prisoner?" Steve asked.

"Are you?" the man - because it's definitely male - shot back. His voice was much closer now and Steve imagined the other man might be crouched next to the mouse-hole on his side.

Steve glanced around his enclosure. "From the look of my cell, I'd say I was a prisoner. Yeah."

The man snorted. "You want me to just take your word for it? For all I know you're another one of Obie's little tests. Get me to befriend you, spill all my deepest secrets."

_Or maybe you're the mole_, the uncharitable part of Steve thought. He shook his head. "Well, I don't exactly have a way to prove anything to you."

"Actually, strike that. I don't care." The man spoke quickly as if coming a snap decision. "At this point I'd talk to you if you were a voice inside my head. It's so quiet, and I don't do quiet well."

Steve was starting to get that impression, which was fine. He needed intel. "How long have you been in here?"

"Don't know. They didn't exactly furnish my digs, and the computers they gave me make an Apple 2 look hot. I seriously have to boot up with a floppy. The big ones."

"Um." Steve understood maybe a word or two of that. His stomach focused on the important parts. "They give you apples?"

A pause. "I'm talking about before iPods-nevermind. You sound too young to remember, and even if I did have one, I don't share my playlists with strangers."

He decided to return to the part of the conversation that made sense. "I've been here a week, give or take." He thought back. "It was December 11th, last I knew."

"December? Huh. I've been here nine months, then. I thought it was more than that, but you know what they say about time flying when you're having fun…"

"Yeah," Steve muttered, looking around his bare cell. Lots of fun.

"Sooo, what did you do to piss Obie off?"

That was the second time the man mentioned that name. "Who?"

"Obadiah Stane," he said impatiently. "Old guy. Loves cigars, kinda looks like The Dude's evil capitalist pig twin brother - Which would make a great sequel, by the way."

Steve decided his new pal on the other side of the wall might have been alone a touch too long. "I don't exactly know." The oncoming lie felt like an itch at the back of his throat. The public knew his general story, but most of the details were classified and, well, there was no need to spill everything. Just in case. "I'm just a soldier. I was in a plane crash - I didn't think I'd get out of it, to be honest, but I woke up here."

"Uh-huh." Sure enough, the man didn't sound like he believed him. Steve was a terrible liar. Always had been. "What branch?"

"Army, in the 107th," he said. "What about you? Why are you here?"

"Me? Eh, I build them neat stuff. I try not to oblige Obie, but sometimes he makes his arguments...pretty compelling."

Steve brightened. "So you're an inventor." He could use a big brain on his side. Howard Stark's gadgets were invaluable in the war, and if this man was half as talented they might have a chance.

"I prefer futurist actually," he said easily. "My name's Tony. So what do I call you, soldier?"

He hesitated. Keeping to first names was a little informal, and spoke loud and clear that Tony didn't fully trust Steve. The feeling was mutual. Steve was in a strange, unfriendly place and it was difficult to put his faith in a man he couldn't see.

"I'm Steve. Pleased to meet you, Tony."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes: Thanks for the positive feedback, everyone! I hope this chapter has been worth the wait. :)**

* * *

Steve counted the approaching footsteps silently in his head. At the forty-third step, a guard came into view, holding a food tray. The fella was almost painfully pale, with perpetually rosy cheeks and busted capillaries along either side of his nose.

The guard said nothing, just stood back and watched Steve for any tomfoolery, the meal tray in hand. Steve stared back with a carefully blank expression he'd mastered back when his mother used to drag him out for church Sunday.

Apparently satisfied Steve wasn't itching for trouble, the guard loaded the tray onto the door slat, then continued his patrol in the opposite direction - fifty steps before Steve heard the door at the end of the hall open and shut.

Steve bent to the mouse-hole. "Tony?"

There was a pause and a scuffle as Tony joined him at his side of the wall. "'sup?"

Sup? Odd fella. "Forty-three steps, entering from the right. Fifty exiting to the left."

"Great. Who was it this time?"

"Dolly."

None of the guards wore name tags, so a couple days ago Steve and Tony put their heads together and came up with monikers. The high color in that guard's cheeks reminded Steve of the dolls some of the girls used to carry around after school when he was a child. Steve also called a painfully thin, slow witted guard 'Scarecrow'. (If only he had a brain…).

Tony's nicknames were equally ridiculous. Honey Boo Boo for a large, round-faced man, and Dubya for one with a twangy Texan accent.

"I'll note it down," Tony said briskly. "Dolly didn't pass by my door on his way out - Pretty sure they're walking pattern 5a today, but we'll see if someone comes by in three hours."

Learning the guards routines was a first step for forming a solid escape plan. The patrols weren't random, as Steve had first thought. Together, they'd learned there were five variations of different patrol times, and sometimes the guards walked counter-clockwise instead of clockwise around the cellblock. The different directions were A and B.

Steve nodded, even though he knew Tony couldn't see him, and rose to collect his tray of food.

The meal was, as always, a slice of bologna between two bizarrely identical pieces of white bread with a thin scrape of mayonnaise for flavor. In a square indent of the tray, there were chunks of what might have been fruit, but tasted like the syrup they'd been canned in, and a dry dinner roll. A small cup of water rounded out the meal.

Before the serum, this would have been a generous amount. Now, Steve made himself chew slowly to make it last.

After, he set the tray back on the lip of the door slat (the tray itself was made from some hard, light material that wasn't metal, but didn't seem to conduct the electricity that ran through the bars - odd) and went to the middle of the cell to start doing pushups. He had to keep in shape. Had to do something other than stare at the walls.

Take a breath on the way down. Touch the floor with his chest. Inhale on the way up. Hold for a moment. Take a breath on the way down…

Steve's mind started wandering as it usually did during a workout. He imagined for the thousandth time what the Commandos were doing at this moment - wondered if they'd been disbanded after the last raid, or if the mop-up of the last HYDRA bases was taking longer than expected.

First thing he'd do when he was able was get a telegram out. It might take awhile to reach anyone, especially if his boys were deep behind enemy lines, but he ought to let them know he was still alive.

Though sometimes he imagined just showing up without notice, back from the dead. The looks on their faces. Oh, how Howard would swear. Peggy might even shoot at him again. She'd forgive him in the end, though.

After his arms were good and tired and he'd risen to wash away the worst of the sweat using water from the sink (there was no shower, but Steve got by the best he could) Steve still felt the pull of the daydream. A telegram might cost too much to send overseas. So, laying on the bed, he turned to the mouse-hole and asked Tony where he thought they were being held.

"New York," Tony said at once. "Probably upstate."

"Upstate? You think?"

"Obie's always been an East Coast man. He's not old money, but wishes he was. Anyway, this building would draw too much attention of it were in the city. The power draw for their experiments would raise a few eyebrows, and he'd want me close enough to stay under his thumb," Tony said with cool arrogance.

"Why's that?"

But he didn't receive an answer. Steve had learned quickly that Tony zipped his lips whenever it came to something personal. Steve knew why - it was the same reason he didn't bring up Project: Rebirth. There was something… off about this place, and Tony. Something he couldn't put his finger on.

What if… what if Tony were one of StaneTech's men? Maybe a headshrinker assigned to keep Steve bare company, play along with him in a fictional "escape" plan.

Also, Tony never asked about the state of the war. Even though Steve was more recently imprisoned out of the two of them, Tony hadn't brought it up, almost like he didn't care. Steve hated to think it, but part of him wondered if Tony was hiding something. Surely an inventor/futurist was needed badly. Maybe Tony had run away? Surely, he wasn't a Nazi sympathizer.

Steve thought about asking once or twice, but couldn't find a polite way to bring it up. It was cowardly, but he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.

But these were thoughts Steve had had before, and surely Tony had his suspicions about Steve in turn. So he turned his mind away from old worries and focused on the problem at hand: Tony figured they were in New York? Why, if that was true then he was nearly home. It hurt a little to think about - so close, but still so far away. "I figured we were in Europe."

Tony's snort was derisive. "Except our guards have US accents. Have you heard Dubya? The man does his namesake proud."

Steve shrugged and turned on his side, looking at the mouse-hole. "People move around. It's a brand new world, Tony. All types of people are mixing together nowadays. Borders between countries mean less than what they did before."

"Yeah, yeah. Don't talk to me about globalization. I practically invented globalization."

Steve mouthed 'globalization' to himself. Sounded like a fancy term Howard Stark would use. He was going to introduce Tony to the man after this was over.

"Maybe," Steve said, "But take me. I grew up in Brooklyn." He'd been throwing out occasional facts about himself, hoping Tony would warm up in kind. So far, he hadn't. "It's a real melting pot - and it wasn't always like that." Now Irish lived practically door-to-door with Italian and Polish folks. There was even a growing Jewish neighborhood springing up on the east end.

There was a long pause before Tony said, "I was born in Manhattan."

"Really?" Steve grinned. "Well heck, maybe you and I passed each other on the street sometime."

"Probably. I was the handsome billionaire running into a town car to escape mobs of photographers."

Steve chuckled. "That was you?" he teased back. "You wouldn't have recognized me from before. I, uh, had a growth spurt in the army."

"What, did they make you shave your head? Get a tattoo? Ohh, wait. Muscles? You bulked up, didn't you?" Tony asked. "So: body type. Are you more of a football or basketball player?"

"What?"

"Just trying to get a picture here, Steve-o."

He felt his cheeks grow warm, though it was a reasonable question. "Baseball, I guess," he blurted, only half-understanding what Tony was asking. He'd be ace in any team in the league with his sprinting speed and quick reactions.

"Baseball, eh? Hmm. Well proportioned, then." Tony's voice was rich and warm and… surely he didn't mean for it to sound as he did. They barely knew each other, and a man ought to be careful with… with conversations like this.

_That never stopped Bu-_

Steve slammed that half-formed thought away. He drew in a quick breath. "What about you?"

"Sadly, my body's made for hours of intense labwork, not chasing a ball - Great hair, though. I'm not gonna lie. Your eye color? Hair color?"

"Dishwater blond," Steve admitted. The girls always liked tall, dark, and handsome and…everything but him. "Blue eyes."

"Brown and brown. But like I said, the hair's awesome."

Steve rolled his eyes. "I bet." Though Peg had brown hair and eyes. Bucky, too. Maybe Steve had a type. Swallowing, he tried to swing their talk to more socially acceptable territory. "You got a dame waiting for you at home?"

He didn't expect Tony to bark out a laugh. "You're really playing up a rat-pack angle, aren't you?" But before Steve could ask what that meant, Tony continued, "No, I don't. But when I get out...well, there will be changes."

"Changes?"

"Changes," Tony agreed, but his voice had gone remote. The warmth gone. "Well, I gotta get back to work. These weapons aren't going to design themselves."

"What are you working on?" Steve asked without real hope for an answer. The last time he tried, Tony had replied with something snarky about a "smart phone", which-fine. If he didn't want to tell him, Steve wasn't going to press. Their fragile companionship took them far enough for some joking around, but nothing past that.

Sure enough, Tony's voice had a hard edge. "Oh, you know. Planning more spectacular ways to make things go boom."

"Any bright ideas on blasting us out of here?"

"We'll see," he said vaguely. If I did, I don't trust you enough to tell you, was loud and clear between them.

Steve sighed and sat up, resting his head against the back of the wall, resigned to another few hours of boredom until the next guard walked by. "Have fun."

Maybe some of his frustration leaked through, because Tony asked, "Don't you have a project or something to keep you busy?"

_Why would they?_ Steve thought. _All they want from me is my blood._ "No."

"Keeping you around for your good looks, huh soldier?" Tony said. "No, but seriously. No board games? Computer?"

He snorted. As if they could fit a whole computer in this room. "Funny, but no."

"Hold on a sec." Tony disappeared from the hole, then there was a rustling sound. "I got a few books - nothing fancy. What's your poison? Tolkien? Game of Thrones? Not my cup of tea, but I hear there's lots of sex and blood in it. What else? One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - Obie's trying to be funny there, what a tool. The Time Machine-"

Steve perked up. "I haven't read H.G. Wells since I was a kid."

"Time Machine it is." There was a ripping sound, then something poked through the hole: papers. It was the pages of a book. The binding and cover were too big to fit, but the pages could be rolled into a tube and shoved through the quarter-size hole.

"I also have Watership Down, if you're into death and bunny rabbits."

Steve murmured a thanks, but once he saw the fine paper, the clear ink and even typeset, he felt a little bad. Tony had just destroyed what was clearly an expensive book. "It's fine. I'll keep busy with this."

"Suit yourself," Tony said and went back to whatever he was doing that made a rhythmic clacking sound. A lot like a typewriter, but softer.

* * *

**OOOO**

* * *

The far hallway door opened three hours later on the dot.

"Rats," Steve cursed, hearing three sets of footsteps instead of the usual single guard. Another blood draw, then. Hurriedly, he slipped the loose pages of The Time Machine under the topsheet of his bed. Then he bent by the mouse-hole and muttered, "I have company," before he stood to face his oncoming visitors.

It wasn't the lady doctor, come for more blood. It was Obadiah Stane.

"Captain," Stane said in greeting. Scarecrow and Dubya flanked his back. "I understand you've been less than cooperative about our blood draws."

Steve didn't need to see Scarecrow's hand drift to his holstered dart-gun to know this was going to end only one way. So Steve shifted his stance slightly to the right instead of facing them full-on to present less of a target. The serum had made him ambidextrous, but he was still a fraction quicker with his right hand than his left.

"I don't see why I should be, seeing as you're the one holding me against my will and keeping me from the front."

Stane took a step closer to the cell bars. The almost jolly glee that had marked their first meeting was gone, replaced by darker, wry amusement. "The war's going fine without you, Captain Rogers. Trust me when I say you aren't needed there anymore."

"That so? Then why don't you bring me a current newspaper?" Steve shot back. "I'll judge for myself."

He didn't expect Stane's visible pause. Nor for him to shoot a silent glare back at his guards. They both shrugged in reply.

Dubya shook his head. "We haven't said a word."

"What's the matter? Newspapers in English scarce around here?" Steve asked. Maybe they were Nazi's after all.

Stane considered him. "I'll see what I can rustle up. Would that be acceptable? A newspaper in exchange for an untainted vial of blood?"

Untainted. Ah, so the Palladium or whatever goop they'd injected him with was playing havoc with their lab work.

"That, and I want to speak to Colonel Phillips. I need to get a message out to my boys. Personally."

"That won't be possible," Stane said, a wry note to his tone.

Steve shrugged. He knew that was an almost impossible request. This wasn't a clandestine operation, though by keeping him caged up, Stane and his company was treating the outcome of the war like a game. "Then I guess you're going to have bad test results."

Something dark moved behind Stane's eyes. "This is me asking nicely, Captain."

"This is me declining, sir." Steve made sure to flash him his brightest smile. The one he used to use for war bond pitches.

Stane took another step closer, pitching his voice low. "You think I don't know what's going on here? That I haven't seen what you're up to? I know about your little glory-hole between the cells."

Steve felt himself go very still.

Stane whipped around and jabbed his finger in the direction of an odd little box set in the upper corner of the hallway, the end of it pointed roughly to Steve's cell. It hadn't looked much like a gun, which was why he had ignored it. "See that? That's my eye on you, twenty-four seven. It shows my people what you're doing at all times, and who you're talking to."

Like a movie camera, only the movie was him. Steve's heart plummeted, but he clenched his jaw to keep any reaction from showing on his face. He had known this was a possibility. "Then Tony is working for you?"

Stane chuckled, suddenly all good humor again. "Tony, Tony, Tony… No. Believe it or not, that little piss-ant's more trouble than you ever were, or will be."

"With all due respect," Steve said, "You haven't known me very long."

That got a genuine laugh. Stane cocked his head, regarding Steve like he had the first day: Like Steve was an animal who had just completed an amusing trick. "I know you better than you think, Captain. Or at least, I've had my staff psychologist pour over your military files to see what makes you tick. You probably ought to thank him. He convinced me it was in your best interest to keep a few pertinent details about your situation to myself."

For one moment - one God awful moment - Steve thought they'd sussed out his true feelings for Bucky. But no, they'd always been discreet. It wasn't possible for a thing like that to show up in military files. There was no check-box for inverts or queers. This was about something else.

"Such as?" he asked, and was proud that his voice came out cool, almost uninterested.

Stane regarded Steve for a long moment. An evaluating look. "To Hell with it. I've always liked killing two birds with one stone." He stepped back and gestured to the guards. "Dose him."

Steve tensed, but focused on the muzzle of Scarecrow's dart-gun. Clearing his mind and waiting for the pull of the trigger. The man fired, and Steve's hand snapped out, catching the dart neatly between two fingers. He yelped - half in surprise it had worked - cupping his hand over his shoulder as if he'd actually been hit, and felt a sharp sting as Dubya's dart hit his flank. But it usually took two, sometimes three darts, to knock him down.

One dart still packed a punch. A rush of dizziness came over him, and Steve stumbled to his knees, playing it up a little as if he'd gotten the full dose.

The cell door opened, and the two guards rushed in. It took all of Steve's willpower to play drugged and docile enough to allow them to cuff his hands behind his back. Even woozy, he thought he had a chance of knocking out these two guards. Or at least getting past them.

But something was up - there was clearly a very big part of a puzzle that Steve was not understanding. Stane was a man playing like he had an ace up his sleeve, and Steve knew his best bet for busting out of here was to learn what it was.

Science had made him into a soldier, but it had always been up to him not to be a stupid one.

"Wha's goin' on?" Steve slurred as they led him out. He leaned against Scarecrow more than what was necessary.

Stane clapped him on the shoulder as if they were pals. "Just a little show and tell."

Normally, Steve wasn't a violent man, but he promised himself that someway, somehow, Stane was going to end up with a broken nose by the end of this.

They marched him down the hallway. Even though he'd only been hit with one dart, Steve needed all his focus to keep himself upright and his feet under him. He subtly flexed his wrists against the cuffs - there was a very slight give to the metal. He estimated he stood a good chance of breaking them if he needed.

The guards led him around one corner, then another. They were coming around the cell block, which meant-

Tony's cell was the same size as Steve's, but furnished. The lucky dog had a bookshelf tucked in one corner, a table loaded down with blueprints in the other. His bed even had blankets and pillows. Tony himself was bent towards a screen that looked a little like a radar detector on the top, and the keys to a typewriter on the bottom half. He turned at the sound of their approach.

In an odd way, Tony reminded Steve of Howard. Same build, same dark hair and scrupulous appearance to facial hair. Even the same irritated clench to their jaw. Why, Tony could be Howard's older brother. He was dressed as Steve was, in a white shirt and loose white pants. But there was a strange circular light glowing from the middle of his chest.

_He's not a mole_, Steve thought with a tiny stirring of relief. _He is a prisoner, like me._ He hadn't been sure if he should believe Stane or not when he told him Tony was a troublemaker.

"Obie. Pleasure to see you, as always." Tony's voice dripped sarcasm, and he didn't bother rising at their approach. Just swiveled in his chair. "Who's the beefcake?"

Stane looked as if he were relishing this moment. It set the hairs on the back of Steve's neck crawling.

"I'm surprised you don't recognize him. I remember Howard boxing up your memorabilia after he sent you to boarding school." He paused. "Tony Stark, meet Captain America."

Tony's dark eyes snapped to Steve. "Bullshit."


	3. Chapter 3

"Stark?" Steve repeated. The tranq made his head feel like it was stuffed with cotton. He didn't understand. Didn't want to understand. They couldn't mean... But hadn't Stane just said, ' I remember Howard boxing up your memorabilia after he sent you to boarding school.'?

Steve's eyes locked on Tony. On... Howard's son?

It was like the final snowflake that rests on an unstable drift. The tiniest last drop that collides into a chain reaction which starts an avalanche. All chaos and destruction - crashing and sliding together into terrible truth in his mind.

... The thin, crisp pages in the book. The light yet solid material that made up the meal tray, Tony's mention of a 'smart phone'. The cruel smirk as Stane had said, "Trust me when I say you aren't needed on the front line..." And Tony never asked about the state of the war.

Howard's son. Tony was Howard's son.

"This isn't possible," he breathed, but he could barely hear himself. There was a high whine in his ears, like he'd been knocked over the head.

Distantly, he heard Stane continue.

"Amazing, isn't he, Tony? Doesn't look a day over twenty-five. When I found him in stasis under the ice, I hardly believed it."

"Why are you showing me this?" Tony's arms crossed over his chest, partially covering the odd circular light. He looked distinctly unimpressed. "Going to donate him to the Smithsonian? Let him molder with the rest of the relics?"

It was as good as a slap in the face. Steve's spine straightened. The cuffs flexed against his wrists, bending the metal. He stopped himself just short of breaking them - Scarecrow was as dim as his nickname suggested, but Dubya was sharp.

Even half-stunned, he knew he had to pick his moment because he was only going to get one.

"No, Tony." Stane waved a grand gesture to Steve. "This is your new project."

"My PHDs aren't in medical science," Tony replied, glancing briefly at Steve. He dropped an arm from his defensive posture. His two fingers on his right hand ticked slightly to the side.

Steve shifted his gaze, following the movement - Dubya, the larger guard, was watching the confrontation between Stane and Tony with rapt attention - almost hungrily. Completely ignoring Steve.

And Tony was calling Steve's attention to it. Interesting.

"So, what? You're trying to build a stable of Super soldiers?" Tony's eyebrows rose. "A harem?"

Stane barked a laugh. "You think I want super soldiers when I have the fountain of youth at my fingertips?"

Tony stilled, the contempt sliding from his face. "No. No biochemical weapons, no weaponized nanobots or nukes. And that," he nodded at Steve, "is a weapon."

"Tony, Tony, Tony." Stane took another step closer to the bars, and Steve didn't miss how Tony edged back. His body language still spoke of defiance, but there was real fear in his eyes. "I'm not asking you," Stane said, then clicked something in his hand. Steve heard the lock to Tony's door disengage.

He'd been waiting for his moment. This was it.

With a twist of his wrists, the metal cuffs broke with a sharp snap. Steve surged forward, grabbing Dubya and propelling the large guard face first into the cell bars. He turned in time to see Scarecrow withdraw something from his belt holster - a gun?

Steve weaved to the side and kicked it out of Scarecrow's skinny hand. A rabbit punch to the jaw knocked him down for the count.

A squeak of shoes behind Steve told him that Dubya had regained his footing. He turned to see the guard come at him, his drawn gun in hand. Only it had two prongs at the end of the muzzle and-

The thing touched Steve, just under his ribs, bringing fire and pain shooting though his side, down his arms and legs. Steve staggered, then fell to his knees, more surprised than stunned.

He caught from the corner of his eye Stane hurrying into Tony's cell - Why?

No time to think. Someone had raised an alarm. Claxons had started to sound around them. Through the pain, Steve reached up and grabbed the end of the not-gun. His fingers spazamed and clenched - was this some sort of electricity? - as more fire raced up his arm.

Steve gritted his teeth. The not-gun crumpled with a burst of sparks. Definitely electric, then. Dubya struck down, but Steve caught his wrist across his forearm and rose up to head-butt the other man. Dubya staggered back, his gaze unfocused and strange. Then he dropped like a sack of potatoes.

The door to Tony's cell was open, and Stane had run inside. He and Tony were fighting, struggling. Stane, larger, had shoved a writhing, cursing Tony against a table. His shirt was ripped.

At first Steve didn't understand. He took a step forward to help, then Stane's hand came away, clutching the glowing blue device.

The sound Tony made was guttural. His own hand fluttered over the gaping hole in his chest. Just like Stane had ripped out his heart.

"No!" Steve started forward, but Stane raised his hand, looking for all the world like he was willing to smash the device to the floor.

"Ah-uh," Stane said. "Not one step closer, Captain. Not unless you want your old friend's son to die of cardiac arrest."

Tony's skin had already gone a sickening gray. "Mother fucker," he snarled, lurching jerkingly to Stane. But he couldn't rise to his feet and Stane easily stepped out his reach. "You son of a bitch. You won't. Y-you need me-need my inventions..."

"Stane," Steve said carefully. "You don't need to do this."

Stane's lips twisted in a parody of a smile. "Stay right there. The alarm's been raised, and my people are on their way."

He didn't need to be told that. He could hear footsteps coming from down the hall. But Tony's breathing had taken a ragged, labored edge. He lay prone, gasping on the floor.

Steve moved.

The worst of the tranquilizer had already burned out of his system. He grabbed Stane's wrist and struck the man across the face. Stane crumpled, and Steve caught the lighted device as it fell from his fingers. Despite the electric blue glow, it was only warm with body heat.

Steve knelt by Tony, one hand coming around to cradle the back of his neck. "How?" he asked, at a loss on how to put the contraption back in. His eyes skipped over the gaping hole - too deep to seem real, and ringed with metal, presumedly to keep tissue from growing in around it. Had Stane done this to him? Some sort of torture?

"Let me," Tony croaked. He reached a shaking hand to the device. Their fingers tangled together as Tony flipped it in Steve's grip and guided it down. Halfway guessing, Steve twisted the device and it engaged back in with an audible click. Tony gasped and arched, half-pain and half-relief.

Their eyes locked.

Then strong hands yanked Steve back. He felt a brief, sharp pressure on the side of his neck. Heard a hiss. Everything went black.

* * *

**OOOO**

* * *

Steve woke up in his cell. Not a surprise. His internal clock told him he'd been out for a half-hour or more. He should get up, assess the situation - the guards would be thrown, stranger things have happened than forgetting to lock a door after a crisis. There might be an opening, a weakness Steve could exploit.

He didn't move.

He was in the future.

The knowledge rolled over Steve again; a sense of wonder and fear. He'd think it was a joke, except for the contraption in Mr. Stark's-in Howard's son's - chest.

Howard's son who was older than Steve by at least a decade. How long had Steve slept? Rip Van Winkle was only supposed to be a story...

What year-what decade was this? Howard had been in his thirties. If he'd settled down and married a girl soon after Steve had crashed the plane - maybe forty years? Dear lord, he might be in the 1980's.

And Peggy... oh Peg. It looked like Steve had truly missed their date.

He raised his hand to the light overhead. His skin was young, firm, and without wrinkles. Even if he slept a whole fifty years, it didn't look like it. Even people trapped in comas aged. He hadn't.

Everyone he knew was old or...

That thought was too big, too terrible to take in at once. Steve rolled from the bed into standing. The cell door was locked - he got his customary painful shock when he touched it. Well, it had just been a thought.

Shaking his stinging hand, he returned to the side of the bed and crouched near the mouse hole. "Tony, uh, Mr. Stark? Are you all right?"

"Wonderful," came Mr. Stark's voice, creaky and tired. "It's just Tony, and you... you're an idiot."

"What?"

"Idiot," Tony repeated distantly. "They tased and tranquilized you, and you still beat two of them like it was nothing. Then, instead of running-"

"Are you saying I should have left you to die?" Steve demanded hotly.

"He's not going to give you another chance to escape. Stane's an egotist, not stupid. They making you into another Yinsen."

Steve blinked. "Come again?"

He heard Tony blow out a breath in frustration. "You think this little hole between our walls is a happy accident? They wanted us to talk. Bond. So in the future when one of us doesn't do what Obie wants-"

"The other gets hurt," he finished, one hand sliding into his hair.

"Yeah, and you reacted exactly as they wanted. Thanks for that." Tony's voice was caustic.

"Did this happen before?"

"Yep. Well-No. Sort of? During my first kidnapping."

"First-?"

"Old news. Really boring story, trust me." But the quick way Tony spoke told Steve otherwise. It wasn't boring, just something he didn't want to relive. "The point is, I knew you were trouble the moment I heard your voice."

But you still spoke to me, Steve thought. He sighed. "I am not going to trade your life for my freedom. Stane will miscalculate again, or we'll find our own way out. Both of us."

There was a pause from the other side of the wall, then a defeated groan. "Oh my God, you are Captain America."

"You're darn right I am."

Tony laughed low. "I thought you were some kind of hipster-you were using old slang ironically."

And I thought you were a little crazy, or a war defector, Steve didn't say. They were silent for a long moment. Steve squared his shoulders and tried to inject confidence in his voice. "We're going to get out of here, Tony."

His reply was unexpectedly small. Almost vulnerable. "Okay, Cap."

The annoyance and brief anger at being called an idiot had distracted him from everything else. Funny. That was the sort of thing Bucky used to do, when Steve was feeling down about being sick. But now the anger had burned out, he was left with questions he wasn't sure he was ready to hear the answer to, but needed to know.

"Tony..." he began, then took a breath.

"Seventy years Steve," Tony said gently as if he'd been waiting for the question. It still hit him like a sledge hammer to the gut.

Steve's voice was weak. "Are you..." Of course Tony was sure. "How is this..." How did anyone know how Dr. Erskine's serum had worked? "I'm just..." Gonna faint or pass out, if he hadn't been gifted with perfect human stamina.

Steve put his head between his knees anyway, breathing deeply. Seventy years.

"I'd offer you a drink," Tony said, "But I've left my liquor cabinet at home."

"I can't get drunk anyway," Steve said weakly.

"Not surprised. They were using elephant tranqulizers to knock you silly for five minutes."

"Yeah?" Steve wiped his hand across his eyes. It came back damp. He took another deep breath and tried to force the sudden tightness in his throat down and away. Stane had said he had an electronic eye on him, and Steve wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of seeing any weakness.

"This..." He grasped for something, anything to hold onto. "This is going to complicate our escape. I was, um, counting on everything being normal. Not... futurized."

Strange. He could almost hear Tony's grin in his reply. "Well, you're lucky you have me. I'm a genius. I'll be the brains, Cap. You be the brawn."

"Trade some of your brains for a hacksaw."

"Make it a laser cutter and you've got a deal."

"I don't know what that is," Steve admitted. "But I like the sound of it."


End file.
